A massive ice storm that plunged tens of thousands of Tennessee homes into darkness has become a political flash point as angry residents cope with power outages stretching into a second week.
The finger-pointing escalated this week as some Republicans argued that a major utility company run by Democratic appointees has “woke” policies on diversity and tree-trimming that are the causes of customers’ woes.
There’s bipartisan and widespread consensus that Nashville Electric Service, which serves the city as well as surrounding counties, mishandled the storm, struggling to mobilize enough workers and equipment to quickly clear fallen trees and restore service.
Roughly 6,000 customers still don’t have power 11 days after the storm. Amid communication snafus, some residents were incorrectly told their lights were back on. In Davidson County, a 39-year-old man and a 92-year-old man were found dead of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in their homes, with generators nearby.
Mayor Freddie O’Connell, a Democrat who appoints the board that oversees Nashville Electric Service, initially defended the utility but this week called its response “unacceptable” and announced a formal review.
Some Republicans, though, say they’ve already identified the issue.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor, alleged on X that the utility company “was so focused on woke policies and DEI that it failed at its most basic responsibility: keeping the power on.”
Tennessee’s Republican House speaker, Cameron Sexton, called for an overhaul of the utility on Facebook and said the General Assembly would pursue accountability. The utility’s “pro-tree canopy policy” and focus on DEI, among other issues, require “executive management to be fired and the board to be replaced,” he wrote.
The utility’s CEO, Teresa Broyles-Aplin, said this week that workers are doing the best they can to respond to the largest storm and outage in the company’s history.
“Accountability is important,” she said at a news conference Tuesday. “Right now, we are in active recovery. We have plenty of time to do after-action review and evaluate things we could have done better.”
She didn’t directly address a question about calls for the state to have more oversight.
Nashville Electric Service referred NBC News to Broyles-Aplin’s public remarks and didn’t answer further questions.
It is just the latest tangle between institutions in Tennessee’s Democrat-led capital and the Republican-run Legislature. In the past, the Legislature has abolished the city’s community police oversight board and tried to wrest control of its airport.
This time, some Republicans have seized on a few details about Nashville Electric Service to make their case that “woke” policies are to blame.
Conservatives circulated a 2024 report showing the company hosted 102 diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging training sessions in 2023 and the beginning of 2024. They have also pointed to a document showing the utility spent millions less over the past two budget years on items described as “Contract Tree & Grass” compared with 2023. Local news outlets have also flagged a 2025 report that raised concerns about vegetation management and maintenance of the electricity distribution system.
A conservative media outlet shared a clip of a TV appearance last year in which Broyles-Aplin described “species specific trimming.”
“I don’t want us out destroying the canopy,” she said.
At Tuesday’s news conference, Broyles-Aplin denied that spending on tree-trimming had decreased.
Michael Lotfi, the deputy state director of Americans for Prosperity Tennessee, a conservative group, who has been without power since Jan. 25, sees the DEI classes and more targeted tree trimming as symbols of misplaced priorities.
“It’s certainly not a conservative value to leave the trees hanging around power lines that will fall during a storm,” he said.
In a statement to NBC News, Blackburn agreed.
“To say NES’ priorities were grossly misplaced is an understatement, and the company has shown current leadership cannot be trusted to do what is best for their customers,” she said.
State Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, a Republican who said he expects the crisis to come up during the legislative session, denied the scrutiny was driven by partisanship.
“We’re not picking on Nashville because they’re a blue city,” said Johnson, whose district is in the utility’s service area. “We’re going to do our due diligence. People lost their lives. There are people who are elderly and people with small children whose homes were not heated when the temperature outside was 4 degrees.”
Democratic leaders haven’t spared the utility from reproach. State Rep. Jason Powell, a Democrat from Nashville, filed a bill that would require electric companies serving 10,000 customers to have grid-resiliency plans.
He rejected attempts to tie the infrastructure breakdown to DEI.
“Marsha Blackburn knows it wasn’t DEI that caused this to happen,” Powell said.
In the meantime, thousands of residents could spend the next few days without power. Restoration should be complete by Monday, the utility said.
Erica Moore, 46, who spent 11 nights in a hotel with her dog and two cats, said she was most frustrated by the poor communication from Nashville Electric Service. There were false alarms, she said, after she was told her power had been restored, only to return home to find the lights still off.
The questions she sees in local Facebook groups focus on survival, not politics.
“Is my kid’s school going to be warm? Are they going to have a warm lunch? Are schools open?” Moore said. “I’m not seeing people say, ‘Damn, NES shouldn’t have spent so much time on DEI training.’”
Stefani Mugenyi, 35, and her husband, Jovan, had their power restored Monday.
During their nine days without electricity, they were unaware of the political back-and-forth. They didn’t see much news as they sat in their car desperate for warmth, charging their phones. Mugenyi said relief finally came when someone encouraged them on social media to contact a Metropolitan Nashville Council member, Courtney Johnston, who brought them a generator and a space heater on Sunday.
“That’s the kind of politician you do want,” Mugenyi said.
